The two men’s anecdotes illuminate Beethoven’s multifaceted personality from two very different angles. Wegeler’s chronicle of the Bonn years neatly complements Ries’ stories of Beethoven in Vienna, representing most of Beethoven’s career. Ries began studying piano with Beethoven in 1801 and remained his friend until the composer’s death. Wegeler was also fortunate enough to marry the only daughter of the cultured and well-to-do von Breuning family, who treated Beethoven as one of their own children, providing him with a welcome escape from his often turbulent and alcoholic home. Wegeler, five years older than the composer, knew Beethoven best between 1782-when Beethoven was 11-and 1796, when the composer was 25. The new title is a fanciful but appropriate rechristening of the original “Biographische Notizen ueber Ludwig van Beethoven.” First published in 1838, 11 years after Beethoven’s death, the book was meant to be a collection of “genuine source material” on Beethoven that would include the reminiscences of Wegeler and Ries as well as 42 letters to and from Beethoven. Here, for example, we read of Beethoven renting out four apartments at one time, of his inability to learn to dance in time to music, of the famous incident of the plate of roast thrown at a waiter’s head, of Beethoven ripping up the title page of the “Eroica” Symphony because Napoleon had declared himself emperor, of Beethoven’s inability to hear a shepherd playing a wooden flute in the countryside, of his extraordinary improvisations and many other anecdotes that have helped form our image of the composer. Beethoven’s personality is resurrected with telling immediacy in Wegeler’s and Ries’ anecdotes, which often invoke a sense of relaxed storytelling among friends. “Beethoven Remembered” is the first complete translation into English of one of the most important original sources on Beethoven by two of his intimate and most reliable acquaintances, the physician Franz Wegeler and the composer and pianist Ferdinand Ries. Everyone who loves music should delight in this volume.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |